Human Resource Management: Functions, Issues, and Optimization of Recruitment Process

This report discusses the various functions of HR, issues highlighted by #MeToo movement, HR policies against harassment, and the optimized way to carry out the selection & recruitment process for an organization.

Human Resource
Management 1

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION....................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES.....................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
The human resource management is the most important part of the organisation. This department
carries out various essential processes within the organization such as strategic management,
workforce planning, human resource development, total rewards given to the employees, policy
formulation, employee labour relations & risk management. Moreover, in this report it has been
discussed the various functions of the HR, issues highlighted by #MeToo movement, HR policies
against sexual harassment, bullying & discrimination. In this report we will also discuss the
optimized way to carry out the selection & recruitment process for an organization. This optimized
way is the improvement of the previous recruiting process (Noe and et.al, 2017).
Functions within HR.
Human resource is called HR. the human resource department of an organization is the integral part
of the organization which is responsible for the overall growth of the organization. It is centralized
system which manages various functions within the organization. This department is proactive in
process of strategic planning, workforce planning, development of human resource, policy
formulation, risk management and various other functions.
Strategic management
For meeting the various objectives of the organization whether short term or long term the
organization needs strategic planning. Thus, Human resource management is responsible for
performing various strategic planning in order to achieve organization objectives.
Workforce planning & employment (selection & recruitment)
the process of recruiting, selection, orientation & exit process all comes under workforce planning.
Thus, workforce planning of the of HR functions in an organization is responsible for the staffing at
the vacant places, by recruiting the best candidate which is the best suitable for post. Thus, this
department hires the most eligible candidate which helps in improving the workforce efficiency and
help the company to accomplish their objectives.
Human resource development (development & training)
The workers or the human resource of the company requires timely training & development. The
HR is responsible for human resource development for the company to achieve its goals &
missions. These trainings are regularly given to the employees to enhance their skills & knowledge
for the betterment of the organization in general (Bratton and Gold, 2017).
Total rewards (benefits & compensation)
The HR of the company is responsible for keeping the track of the employees' data. The HR
benefits team is responsible for giving attractive compensation & benefit packages of the new
joined which may include some health insurance or etc. A tempting reward will definitely tend to
attract new candidates as well as for retains those who were once hired.

Policy formulation
The policy formulation of the HR function includes assigning of various policies which helps the
employees in various ways. Policy formulation give the employees a belief of fair decision within
the company. Such that for hiring of candidates there must be fixed set of procedure through which
each candidate has to go through before the final selection. Thus, policy formulation prevents the
employee from discriminations.
Employee labour relation
Employee labour relation means relation between employee relation, whether between seniors or
junior or between the employees on same post. The HR is responsible for maintains the best relation
among the employees. Employee relation includes issues related to union & non-union, sexual
harassment, discrimination issues. Thus, employees are timely encouraged to contact employee
relation just to make sure they are treated fairly and to solve various problems related to workplace.
Bullying, sexually harassing & discrimination are the most critical issues of an organization which
should be solved promptly as they at arise (Sparrow and et.al, 2016).
Issues highlighted by #MeToo movement : problems faced by women at the workplace, issues
related to race & sexuality
The #MeToo movement special highlighted the various issues an employee could face while
working within an organization. This movement mainly focused on the issues or problems faced by
the women at the workplace , along with it the issues faced by the employees on the scale of racism
and sexuality.
Philip's Green, is the CEO of the Arcadia group is been embroiled in issues like tax avoidance and
most recently allegations of sexual harassment, racism and bullying, leading to calls for his
knighthood to be revoked. Philip Green is one of the newest high-profile figures to become
embroiled in issues surrounding the #MeToo movement as workplace bullying, sexual harassment
and discrimination remain some of the most fiercely discussed issues within the workplace.
Sexual harassment at the work place includes passing of sexual jokes or comments on the other co-
workers, unfair physical behaviours such as touching, sexual advances & various forms of sexual
assaults. Sexual harassment at the work place also includes the displaying of pictures, sexual
videos, drawing or videos of sexual nature, sending email which include sexual content. Thus,
sexual harassment is a critical issue which non of the individual willing to face. However, to
overcome this issue of sexual harassment with the organization the employee could take various
actions such as tell to the manager what unfair is happening to it. Giving in writing to the HR for
the issues. The victim, may either talk to the HR team of organization if they are able to give some
correct advice to overcome such critical issues of the workplace. Moreover, by collecting the
advices i.e. by keeping the record of the of all issues whenever the victim has faced the harassment

by the culprit.
Employee faces many problems in the organization. These problems are related to discrimination
either on sexuality or racism. Employees facing racism issue are not treated fairly in the
organization, they could face this issue starting from the selection procedure to the decision-making
process of the company. Thus, it is always advised to take instant action whenever an employee
seem itself as been treated unfairly. The employee must first take the help of the human Resource
department & if still the problem remains constant then it must take the help of rules and
regulations of the state (Brewster and et.al, 2016).
The #MeToo movement and legislations handles the issues of claims and abuse of the employee at
workplace. This movement was started to show that there are a so many forums to secure justice.
This states that when an employee is exposed to sexual harassment & abuse at the workplace he
may take the help of the legal system to get overcome from such unfair practices. There are various
legal actions which an victim could take, but it is always suggested taking legal advice from the
sexual harassment lawyer before filing the case against the culprit of the sexual harassment. As The
legal advisor will already by knowing what action should be taken in this particular situation &
could provide confidential & personalized legal action.
Strength and weakness of different approaches to recruitment and selection procedure
The strength of different procedures of recruitment and selection procedure is it attracts the essential
talent which is required in the company. Some companies hires some third party for recruiting and
hiring of candidates in their organisation and take charges for finding the right candidate for their
firm. As it is possible that the right candidate may not be in direct reach of the firm but the
recruitment and selection agency could help the company in finding it.
The weakness associated with the recruitment and selection procedure is it is not always that it will
attract the right candidate. As earlier in the traditional methods the company tends to post the open
position on the company’s website or through job boards, moreover, individuals tends to attend job
fairs or the company’s find them through networking sites so as to get the right candidate for the
job.
HR policies that highlight workplace bullying, sexual harassment and discrimination and
associated legislation and the impact of these legislations on the HRM decision-making
Workplace bulling includes repeated & unreasonable behaviour directed towards the worker or
group. This repeated bulling may create risk to the health & safety.
It is advisable to the all workers or the HR of the workplace to take the complaints of the
harassment & bulling seriously and promptly. And fair & reasonable actions should be taken against
these inappropriate and unjustified practices, so that these won't get repeated in the future of the
organization (Reiche and et.al, 2016).

The HR policies to overcome bullying & harassment within the workplace are:
Setting of real & achievable performance goals along with the standards & deadlines, setting up of
appropriate & fair allocation of the working hours transferring a person to another area or changing
its role of operation. Informing an employee about its unsatisfactory performance in a constructive,
fair & honest way. The HR of the organization can take disciplinary actions such as termination or
suspension of the employee whenever they see any inappropriate or unjustified situation will occur.
The various responsibilities of the human resource against unjustified practices of bullying, sexual
harassment and discrimination are:
Taking all the complaints of bulling, harassing & discrimination seriously & promptly, instant
actions must be taken whenever they see any unfair is happening with their employees, they must
establish a faith in employees at the workplace as they are working at the safe place, making
recommendation to facilitate accurate solution to all the complaints regarding harassment & bulling,
engaging of external investigator for formal investigation whenever required, the HR must facilitate
professional or mediation counselling whenever required, affording principles of appropriate justice
for all relevant parties, the HR of the organization is also responsible for the protection of
confidentiality of all those past reports of bulling & harassment. Moreover, the HR is also
responsible for conduction of formal and informal investigation of any particular report of bullying
& harassment.
The employer employee are also responsible for taking prompt action against any discrimination
practice within the organization by promoting open communications and by sharing of information,.
The employer must allocate the tasks fairly with some realistic and achievable deadliness, providing
flexible working arrangement, treating all the employees equally and not discriminating then on the
basis of race , colour etc.
There are some legislation against harassment, bullying & discrimination are: anti-discrimination
laws in hiring which states that whenever an employee is been hired, it must not be hired on the
basis of race or colour or on any disability basis. Moreover, regulations protecting wages &
overtime law suggest that there must not be any discrimination on salary / wages i.e. employee at
the same level must be treated equall with equal pays.
Effectiveness of different HRM practices in order to raise organisation’s productivity and
profitability.
Talent management
The success of a company depends upon the retaining, attracting and managing of the best
employee. Thus, here the human resource department is responsible for managing the talent
effectively in an strategic priority manner with higher degree of sophistications.
Performance management

For achieving the strategic objective, with development of goals as well as for participation in
setting of goal can be done by effectively managing the performance. Therefore, it is the role of
human resource management to manage the performance by through their effective practices.
Knowledge management
Association of information technology systems with the knowledge management is common in all
firms. The HRM department of the organisation helps in linking knowledge management
information systems with sharing of goals and vision, personal relationships, people development
programs as well as in the incentive structure.
Emphasis on attitudes as well as cultural fit in the company
Earlier the selection of employee was based on it job related skills or on it academic credentials,
while the current comprehensive HRM tends to hire the individual with the overall strategic
objective that it will understand and support the directions of the company in moving ahead.
Rewarding and contribution
The HRM of the organisation regularly monitors the performance of the employee and when an
extra ordinary performance is observed than the HRM tends to give the appropriate appraisal by
rewarding the individual on its achievements. In this way the practices of HRM enhances the
productivity of the employee as well as of the company.
Importance of employee relation with respect to influencing HRM decision making
The human resource is one of the crucial foundation of any successful organisation. The importance
of relation of employee while influencing the HRM decision making are
A stake at the table
An employee tends to gain an personal and professional stake in the company if it is involved in the
decision-making process. This will helps in increasing its overall productivity.
Empowerment improves morals
An organisation moral is being enhanced by the involvement of its workers in the process of
decision making. Thus, this involvement tends to lowers the gap between the management and
employees of the company.
Improves workplace relations
The opportunity to share knowledge as well as to give voice to their opinion by participating in the
process of decision making tends to improves the relationship between managers and workers.
Taps into internal resources
For well corporation, the company could use their employees for the process of decision-making.
As through this decision the company did not had to outsource this process which eventually saves
its time and money

Improvement in recruitment & selection procedure within an organization
Recruitment and selection is always a critical process in an organization. For recruiting the
appropriate candidate for the post requires some essential steps to be taken by the HR.
Some recommendation regarding improvement in recruitment & selection procedure within the
organization of optimized way to conduct this process are:
defining the position & who will be needed to fill the particular post
By reviewing the need of the position before reaching the candidate. The tough process of
recruitment & selection can be optimized by getting enough knowledge about the need of the
position. If the vacant position is enough important to be filled then only the process of recruiting
must be carried out.
Asking relevant & straightforward questions
The recruiting process is always a time-consuming process, so to reduce the time consumption in
this process the Human Resource Management which is undertaking the task of selection of the
candidate must ask the most relevant & straightforward questions to the candidate to check its
knowledge & skills. Asking the most relevant & straightforward questions will show the
experience of the candidate.
Testing the candidates
Designing a basic test module to test the skills, capabilities & knowledge of the candidate. If the
candidate will be able to clear the task then it must be directly transferred to the work floor instead
of giving the specialized class or training. In this way the process of recruitment and selection can
be optimized as it reduces the time consumed in trainings.
Developing a selection committee
By developing a specialized selection committee will undertake the process of selection of the
appropriate candidate. This step can be taken out by selecting 1 or 2 employees from the
organization and assigning them the task to check the knowledge & skills of the candidate. It is
assumed that when the skill are tested by the already existing employees, then they could provide
the exact work culture at the time of selection itself (John and Taylor, 2016).
Attracting the contingent workers by building workplace culture
Features like competitive market salary, working benefits & healthy working environment are all
combine to bring an attracting work culture of candidates.
CONCLUSION
This report can be concluded as the human resource management is the most important part of the
organization. This department carries out various essential processes within the organization such as

strategic management, workforce planning, human resource development, total rewards given to the
employees, policy formulation, employee labour relations & risk management. Moreover, this
report shows the various functions of the HR, issues highlighted by #MeToo movement, HR
policies against sexual harassment, bullying & discrimination. This report also discussed the
optimized way to carry out the selection & recruitment process for an organization. This optimizes
way is the improvement of the previously used recruiting process.

REFERENCES
Books and journals
Bratton, J. and Gold, J., 2017. Human resource management: theory and practice. Palgrave.
Brewster and et.al, 2016. International human resource management. Kogan Page Publishers.
John, R. and Taylor, B., 2016. Human resource management.
Noe and et.al, 2017. Human resource management: Gaining a competitive advantage. New York,
NY: McGraw-Hill Education.
Reiche and et.al, 2016. Readings and cases in international human resource management. Taylor &
Francis.
Sparrow and et.al, 2016. Globalizing human resource management. Routledge.